Current situation – SWOT Analysis
Target Market
Fashion conscious millennial (22-37) women in New Zealand.
Successful campaigns targeting this segment
Free People (Clothing Brand)
Free people managed to turn shopping into a deeper and more desireable experience through their marketing tactics including a blog (BLDG 25) as well as a monthly calendar of pop-up events. Events tailored to their target market for example tarot card reading and meditation classes which would appeal to women also interested in the brands active/bohemian aesthetic.
“Content on the blog is judiciously curated to appeal to the free-spirited Free People girl; a girl who shoppers not only relate to, but aspire to be. Importantly, this lifestyle content extends well beyond product tie-ins. Not every post is out to sell you something.” (launchmetrics)
Through this they have successfully positioned themselves not just as a brand, but as a lifestyle. They understood that for millennials, doing is better than having.
Research explains the brands success as 72% of millennial women said that spending on experiences makes them the happiest (Bourdeau). Additionally 69% of millennials believe attending live events and experiences makes them feel more connected to other people, the community, and the world.
Good On You (Refresh Partner & Brand Directory)
Good On You is a not for profit organisation – their main marketing purpose is to educate and raise awareness. Targeting the same demographic as us we can see that they have used a similar approach on all their social media platforms (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook & Pinterest). Using colour and attractive imagery alongside shocking statistics, informative quotes and relevant stories from all over the world to educate consumers.
They use part of their website as a sort of blog – making it interesting for millennials to browse through.
Revolve Clothing
Revolve Clothing is another brand using experiences to reach millennial fashion lovers. Their main strategy is collaborating with influencers to create content at events such as music festivals or creating their own events to invite influencers to such as holidays abroad.
Revolve dressed an impressive 416 influencers at Coachella in 2017, reportedly resulted in 4.4 billion social impressions for the brand (Forbes).
Additionally they created their own Revolvefestival a mini-festival next door happening at the same time as the famous Californian desert party, cherry-picked celebs and supermodels attended the very Instagramable #REVOLVEfestival.
Millennials value authenticity. A key element in Revolve’s success is in giving these influencers plenty of freedom to create content that feels natural and organic.
“70 percent of current overall sales at revolve.com are driven by an influencer. And based on projections that Revolve is on track to surpass $1 billion in retail sales this year, that means that content creators could be responsible for up to $700 million of this year’s revenue.” (TheFashionLaw)
Allowing customers to feature on their website – alongside these famous influencers. Millennials love participating, Revolve encourages this through the #Revolveme section on their website which encourages customers to tag this in their social media pictures wearing Revolve clothing for the change to feature.
Rent The Runway (Fashion Rental Platform USA)
According to Anushka Salinas, Rent the Runway’s chief revenue officer, 94% of the company’s customers are acquired organically, while the rest come through paid marketing initiatives. (Modern retail)
They claim that user-driven mechanisms — social content, events and customer reviews — has helped validate Rent the Runway’s business model more than any traditional or paid social media advertising could. (Modern retail)
“When we added customer photo reviews to the site, it drove major organic growth. Our most effective marketing is sharing the experiences women have in Rent the Runway.” said Salinas (Modern retail)
They have also developed a referall system existing customers to invite friends to try the service for a discounted rate – incentivised by additional benefits for them. This has contributed to new customer acquisitions and only costs Rent the Runway the discount amount ($20) for new users’ first months (Modern retail).
Their success can be explained by experts sugesting that it’s much easier for companies who are the only or one of a few competing in their space to drive sales through word-of-mouth (Modern retail). Once a category becomes saturated, customer sentiment is split among competitors. As we are breaking into an untapped market with our company taking a similar approach with focusing on user-generated content could also be very sucessful for Refresh.
As their customer base grew and they introduced more membership options they launched a couple of TV commercials.
Goals
- Raise awareness of our platform
- Educate consumers on the problems in the fashion industry
- Present ethical fashion as a solution
- Increase desirability of access over ownership
- Combat barriers to normalise rental
Budget
$125 per month (to begin with, this will grow as our business grows)
Strategies
Key approaches for Refresh marketing:
- Micro-influencers – individuals who are not yet famous yet have a large level of influencers over a substantial amount of social media followers (e.g 10,000)
- Marketing with users – not at them. Encouraging our users to post images of themselves.
- Telling our story in an interesting way. Refresh blog section of our website.
- Creating experiences beyond rental – Pop up events related to the values of our business.
- Paid social media advertising – low budget.
- Educational statistics/stories/interviews – clearly aligning with the sustainability movement.
- Referal systems, incentivising existing members to invite their friends to join.
- Campaings and competitions on social media that drive our user-generated content.
- Guerrilla marketing campaigns
Specific Campaign Ideas:
“Worn Stories“
This would be a section on our website dedicated to user-generated content. Users would be encouraged to tag #Refreshyourself on their social media posts wearing their borrowed garments for the chance to feature on our website and social media channels.
Mirco-influencer Collaborations
Studies have reported Millenials value word-of-mouth as opposed to traditional advertising therefore Refresh would collaborate with relatable fashion and style micro-influencers who share our sustainable and ethical values. Collaborating with these individuals would help combat the negative perception often associated with second hand clothing making it desireable through being associated with these successful and stylish individuals.
Content such as ‘share clothes with me’, being part of the concious clothing community (family, sharing clothes like siblings) on Refresh, emphasising convinience, accessibility and saving money all whilst consuming more responsibly.
As we grow and have a larger marketing budget these individuals would be invited on Refresh trips – rather than to stylish destinations we would go to places where we could volunteer and make a difference while creating powerful content.
Refresh Journal
A section on our website that operates as a blog. Content would be a mix of education and fun. Documenting any Refresh events, other content such as interviews with fashion brands, Good On You information about brands, great things our influencers are doing etc. Eventually we would hire professional journalists for this but to start out this content would be written by us.
Refresh Events
We would hold pop-up events in various locations accross NZ inviting our users and the general public. These would be both fashion and environmental related events for example:
- Tree planting events (helping to off-set our carbon emissions)
- ‘Pop up changing room’ (customers can come and try on our clothes, sign-up and take them home to borrow right there and then)
- Learn how to mend/sew workshops
- Styling workshops
- Guest speakers (fashion/environment/female empowerment)
Guerilla Marketing campaigns
‘Closet in the cloud’
We would create a painting of a virtual store front on a wall of a central location in collaboration with a local street artist. This would generate a large amount of buzz (word of mouth) as well as user generated social media posting. In a location surrounded by fast-fashion retail it would be directly disrupting consumer behaviour. The painting would also feature a large QR code that consumers can scan to take them to our landing page – they can read about us there and download the Refresh App.
Referral systems
Incentivising existing members to invite their friends to join. This could be a promotion such as $20 off for your friend and 100 points for you added to your balance.
‘Get Naked’ Campaign
Emphaising how we only stock brands with transparent supply chains. In collaboration with Good On You and our supplier brands – following their ethical supply chain from start to finish. Something most fashion brands couldn’t even do themselves.
Sources:
Bourdeau, Sarah. “Millennial Women Are Here to Slay: Merkle and Levo Release Report Uncovering Buying Behaviors and Purchasing Power of Millennial Women.” Businesswire, Mar. 2018.
7 Steps to Create a Marketing Plan
https://www.modernretail.co/platforms/rent-the-runway-acquires-94-of-its-customers-through-organic-marketing/
https://www.launchmetrics.com/resources/blog/the-battle-for-millennial-mindshare
Refresh Fashion Library 